.jpeg)
I often get asked about the difference between coaching and therapy, which is a valid question for folks that haven’t dabbled in either modality or haven't been exposed to a lot of rhetoric from either of these worlds.
As I went to write a little blurb about this in the FAQs, I realized I had a lot more thoughts on what coaching isn’t. There is so much self-help rhetoric out there that is unhelpful at best, and dangerous or toxic at worst (and I don’t use that word lightly). It warrants a longer piece of writing at some point, but for now, here’s my perspective on what good coaching should not entail. If you have more questions on what coaching is, you can of course set up an intro call :) Or, check out the rest of this website.
Coaching is not therapy.
(Disclaimer: I am not a therapist or licensed in any way, but this is a topic I have researched heavily as both a recipient of each modality and a coach myself.)
Okay, this is a big one that comes up a lot. Therapy, in all its schools of thought, is a profound way to make sense of your life. Sometimes there's an end goal (like overcoming addiction), and sometimes it's about understanding yourself a little bit better, or suffering a little bit less. Personally I spent 7 years in psychoanalysis (pretty old-school stuff), dabbled in social work school, and can emphatically attest to the depth and impact of the psychotherapeutic process. This type of work allows you to go places that just wouldn't be appropriate for a coaching session. It might have a more stream-of-consciousness style to it, and there might be an emphasis on the relational dynamic itself. (For example, the act of being witnessed as your life's story unfolds, week after week for years on end, is kind of the entire point of psychoanalysis). Many forms of somatic bodywork and psychospiritual healing can also support this sort of profound emotional processing.
But sometimes, we need more immediate and actionable feedback on creating change in our lives, whether internally or out in the world. Coaching is a profound way to make future-oriented progress, even if you’re simultaneously working through emotional or psychological challenges better suited for therapy. These two modalities can and do complement each other. The relationship between coach and client is still incredibly important and impactful, but it's most likely a time-bound one from the start.
The main distinction here is that coaching is not the appropriate forum to deeply process traumas or make sense of past experience — in other words, we don’t really need to question the “why”, but we start from the “how” or the “what”. How does this emotion or thought pattern affect you today? What is the outcome being created in your life? Can we adjust it if it’s holding you back?
With that said, coaching doesn't have to be solely results-oriented. It can be profoundly supportive in the pursuit of self-discovery, which is a legitimate outcome of the coaching process in and of itself, but it's nonetheless more targeted than therapy. Of course, there are approaches to psychotherapy that are more future-oriented as well, but the guardrails tend to be stronger within the coaching container. In coaching, there's typically an explicit expectation for the client to take more ownership over the process. Coaches are not "authority" figures the way therapists can sometimes be perceived.
More thoughts: Sometimes people distinguish these modalities as serving functioning (coaching) vs. non-functioning (therapy) people. I understand the distinction, but disagree with this. There is not a singular tipping point at which you become “high functioning” in society, and frankly, this dichotomy is patronizing and ableist. However, if you’re experiencing acute psychological distress or are in an emergency mental state, coaching is not the right support tool for you in that moment. It does not mean you can’t benefit from coaching once you’re back to being stable — you don’t need to wait until you’re “healed”, because you’ll never be fully healed.
Coaching is not aimed at feigning positivity (i.e. “spiritual bypassing”) or empty empowerment.
Life is beautiful, messy, joyful, and painful. Thoughtful coaching does not gloss over that. It does not encourage you to bypass your difficult emotions or the harsher truths of life. Nor should it perpetuate a patriarchal/late stage capitalist status quo that gaslights you into believing undesired circumstances are your own fault. There are plenty of circumstances out of your control: systemic oppression, economic factors, family, genetics and biology, among others. I don’t need to list them all. I could also rant for days about hustle culture and capitalism, and I firmly believe coaching shouldn’t add to the mythos of American exceptionalism. But with this context in mind (it’s always both/and), we do have a huge amount of power and autonomy when we reclaim agency over our thoughts, beliefs, self-perception, and behaviors.
Coaching is an excellent tool to cultivate this inner alignment, and pursue the existence and outcomes that we want. You often have more agency than you think. Coaching is not about teaching you to white-knuckle your way through life. Of course, it is possible to achieve many of the results you want, or think you want, with brute force...in fact, you’ve probably already done this a lot in your life. But what if, instead, you were as grounded in yourself as possible, so that the how was as beautiful and powerful as the what?
The reality that often gets lost in self-help rhetoric is that transformation is a completely inner experience. Your circumstances could literally not change at all, but by learning to relate to yourself, your life, and your surroundings differently, your lived experience could be radically different. Sometimes we do really want to change our external circumstances for the right reasons, and coaching helps you achieve these changes from a place of groundedness rather than from shame or suffering.
Coaching is not giving advice (at least, not directly).
The job of a coach is to mirror your inner world back to you, and when appropriate, offer new ways of looking at things in order to provoke deep internal change. I care about success however you define it. Coaches listen deeply, recount your narratives back to you, ask thought-provoking questions, and hold space for processing and change.
We challenge you and hold you accountable with love and grace, offering practical tools and takeaways when they resonate. What we don't do is have an agenda for your life, or give advice at-will — like any good practitioner, we use frameworks and methods rooted in theory and proven principles, through which we filter our reactions and how we engage with you in a session.
Coaching is not manifestation.
Okay, so..there are manifestation coaches out there, and I’m sure some of them are great. I am not one of them.
I’m not suggesting the ability to alchemize your reality with magic, intention, or will is not possible. I actually do believe in magic, and the allure of mystery is at the crux of my worldview. I’m absolutely convinced that the universe (including consciousness) is far more mystical than our modern sensibilities can grapple with. Aleister Crowley (problematic but nonetheless fascinating 20th century occult weirdo) defined magic as “the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with will”. That has compelled me deeply since I was about 11 years old and discovered the occult section of my childhood public library.
But, those beliefs are not necessarily the crux of effective coaching, and they don’t factor into how I personally work with clients. Coaching is concerned primarily with you and your inner alchemy, less so with what’s out there in the universe (even if they’re two sides of the same coin, but I digress...).
More thoughts: First of all, manifestation rhetoric often strips us of our agency. So much of the time it’s not teaching us how to take aligned action. You can visualize and imagine future outcomes all day (and these are in fact great practices to leverage), but without operating from a place of groundedness and taking steps in the world to realize your visions, or implementing practices in your life to change your inner reality, those future outcomes won’t...manifest.
Second, a lot of these ideas have been influenced by the uniquely American tradition of Christian prosperity gospel, a theological framework that tells us God will reward us with abundance if only we sacrifice our money/time/energy first. And if you don’t succeed, it was because you didn’t (insert personal responsibility) enough. This dangerous theology is, again, dripping with American exceptionalism, and has reached its tendrils into much of the self-help and personal development world. While I value individual agency and also believe in the power of tapping into mysterious forces, I’m hesitant to buy into a belief system that puts the onus for success entirely on the individual, and requires no accountability from communities, institutions, or systemic structures. (Curious about prosperity gospel? Start here.)
These are my more-fleshed-out thoughts on what coaching isn't, for now. I hope this was helpful in giving you an understanding of what coaching would not involve (and what it would!) if we worked together. I have a deep interest in the history of prosperity gospel, New Thought, and the sociocultural and historical contexts that gave rise to the self-help industry of today, so stay tuned for more thoughts on this if you’re interested in these topics, too.